Alliance, Ohio — For the first time since 2021, an MCVL team will put two trophies in the case. Mount Union won another epic battle against Baldwin Wallace, taking a five-set victory and, with it, the league's automatic berth to the NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship. The Purple Raiders took the regular-season title with an undefeated 8-0 record and now will enter next week's NCAA regional play with a 20-8 overall record. Baldwin Wallace, the third-place team in the regular season, dropped to 19-11.
The match see-sawed its way to the deciding fifth set. BWU survived a huge comeback in set one, winning 25-23. Mount Union won set two, 25-22, and then pushed the Yellow Jackets to the brink with a 25-23 victory in set three. BWU took back the momentum in set four with a decisive 25-19 win and kept the vibe through the first half of set five. Leading 10-8, the Jackets saw Mount Union score seven of the last nine points for the match win. Most of those came on BWU attack errors. The final point came on a service error. Head coach Matt Mihelic now will lead UMU to the Division III tournament next weekend.
Stat leaders for the Raiders were Jack McClure with a team-high 19 kills (.255 hitting percentage), Will Heeney with 42 assists, and Peyton Koszelak, MCVL Defensive Player of the Year, with 17 digs. All three were selected to the all-tournament team with Heeney chosen as the event's MVP. Baldwin Wallace was paced Ted Hofmeister's match-high 25 kills and a .396 hitting percentage. Ethan Herbst ran the show for the Jackets with 49 assists and also contributed 13 digs. Both of them were also all-tournament selections.
Trine's Kevin Boncaro earned all-tournament honors as did Wittenberg's Jake Downs.
In yesterday's first semifinal, Baldwin Wallace defeated Wittenberg, 3-1. Hofmeister was outstanding again with 18 kills, and Downs had eight digs for Wittenberg. Mount Union upended Trine in the second semi, 3-1. Michael Bowler, the MCVL Offensive Player of the Year, had 15 kills for UMU, while Boncaro had 15 for Trine.
The NCAA championship field will be announced Monday, April 14th at 10:00a ET. This year's national semifinals and final will be held April 25 and 27 at in Salem, Va.